Until now, the first two digits of your landline number were determined by your belonging to one of the 5 metropolitan geographic number zones, as reported by our colleagues from Capital. These areas divide France into 4, with the addition of an area specific to Ile-de-France. They correspond respectively to 01, 02, 03, 04 and 05. When you move from one area to another, you have to change your landline number, which can be somewhat restrictive for some.

Especially when it comes to businesses! The loss of their number can cause a loss of customers, who will no longer be able to reach them. The worst: such a number change was also necessary when moving within the same geographical number zone until 2020: each of the 5 zones is indeed subdivided into 412 zones, called elementary number zones.

From January 2023, the geographic obligations associated with the first two digits of a landline number will be completely abolished. It will therefore be possible to ask your operator to keep the same number when moving to another area.

This measure was taken in view of the significant proportion of households that were affected by this irritating factor: nearly 50% of moves in France represented changes of ZNE. If such a relaxation is possible, it is thanks to the generalization of telephone communications via the Internet which has greatly contributed to the lifting of geographical constraints.